As Minneapolis grieves, investigators are assembling a picture of the 23-year-old suspected shooter’s unraveling life, with newly filed warrants revealing fragments that may help explain what happened inside Annunciation Catholic Church.
Records indicate Robin Westman had been living in a Richfield apartment until a recent breakup, after which they stayed with an older friend in St. Louis Park. Detectives say Westman arrived at the church in a van registered to their father, who later allowed officers to search his Minneapolis home. There, police seized a tactical vest, two computer drives, and assorted documents that could prove significant.
The attack began during morning Mass, sending parishioners scrambling for cover as a figure dressed in black tactical gear fired into the sanctuary. Two children—8-year-old Fletcher Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Moyski—were killed, and 18 others were wounded, most of them students. Police later said Westman died at the scene of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Investigators have not yet been able to interview Westman’s mother, Mary Grace Westman. Through attorney Ryan Garry, she has said she is “deeply distraught,” denies any involvement, and will communicate through counsel. Meanwhile, authorities say they recovered a journal-style “manifesto,” portions of it written with Cyrillic characters and phonetic English, that points to mounting resentment, family conflict, and volatility in the weeks leading up to the shooting.
One July 1 entry appears to dwell on a fraught relationship with Westman’s mother: “Your words, mother, made me stay in my discomfort unable to ask for help to avoid admitting defeat… the way you handled it led me to wanting to kill so so many people.” Other passages lament “experimenting” with gender and drug use and describe long-standing feelings of rejection: “When I was first out to my mother, she was VERY antagonistic… She really made me hate myself and think I will never be good enough.”
The investigation has widened to Florida, where the FBI visited a condominium linked to Mary Westman. Officials in Collier County confirmed deputies conducted a welfare check involving a juvenile at that address the day before the Minneapolis attack; they said the call was unrelated to the shooting. The FBI declined comment on its activity, and Minneapolis police said federal agents are still trying to locate Mary Westman without specifying the purpose.
Amid the search for answers, families of the two children lost are focusing on remembrance and change. Outside the school, Fletcher’s father, Jesse Merkel, described his son as an outdoors-loving, sports-mad 8-year-old who also loved to cook. “Because of their actions, we will never be allowed to hold him, talk to him, play with him, and watch him grow into the wonderful young man he was on the path to becoming,” he said, urging people to remember Fletcher for who he was, not the way he died.
Harper’s parents, Michael Moyski and Jackie Flavin, called their 10-year-old “bright, joyful, and deeply loved,” with a laugh that filled every room. They spoke of a younger sister struggling with an unimaginable loss and asked that their grief galvanize action: “No family should ever have to endure this kind of pain. We urge our leaders and communities to take meaningful steps to address gun violence and the mental health crisis in this country. Change is possible, and it is necessary.”
Officials say all 18 wounded survivors—15 of them children—are expected to live, crediting quick-thinking staff and students whose actions likely prevented a greater toll. As vigils grow outside Annunciation Catholic Church, the parents of Fletcher and Harper are determined that the story of this tragedy not end with their deaths, but with the resolve to prevent others from knowing the same sorrow.
